OTTAWA – It was a zombie apocalypse in Ottawa Saturday with a twist – two different groups of the walking dead and the potential for a clash.

But the Ottawa Zombie Walk participants and Thrill the World zombies united in an uncharacteristically lively flash mob on Sparks Street.

Thousands of people dressed as zombies met at the MacDonald Gardens Park at 2:30 p.m. for the walk to raise money and non-perishable items for Ottawa Food Bank. Meanwhile, at the National Gallery of Canada, Thrill the World zombies were shuffling in a slightly more coordinated fashion.

People arrived dressed in every zombie costume imaginable – baseball players, police officers, a bride and even a family dressed as zombie artwork. Before marching to Parliament Hill in the fundraising walk, the zombies splashed themselves with fake blood and put the finishing touches on their costumes.

Then later Saturday, the two groups of zombies met on Sparks Street for a flash mob, an opportunity for zombie bride Nat Gladu to find a husband.

“I would see if they were cute or not and I would find a groom,” Gladu said. “Still looking.”

Gladu did the zombie walk with Lucie Maheux, who was dressed as a butcher and said she catered Gladu’s fictitious wedding.

“This is all that’s left of my groom,” Gladu said, holding up a severed limb. “I was a bit hungry. It happens. It’s a big day.”

2013 Ottawa Zombie Walk in Ottawa, October 27, 2013.

It was also a big day for Melanie Lahaie and Morgan McMahon – they celebrated their one year anniversary at the zombie walk.

In fact, the young couple had their first date at last year’s event – an idea that Lahaie says others should do because it was “epic.”

“It was a bloody mess,” said Lahaie, who dressed on Saturday as a lab assistant to help out her HAZMAT-suited boyfriend. “It was beautiful. I loved it.”

While some found love at the zombie walk, others came dressed as their favourite movie characters.

Jake Gibbons, 17, took care in crafting his pyramid head for his Silent Hill movie costume. His outfit was made mostly of latex, splashed with large amounts of what appeared to be fake blood.

“Oh no. It’s real,” Gibbons joked, holding up a piece of flesh he said he tore off his arch enemy.

His pyramid head was made of cardboard, bottle caps, mesh and foam. Gibbons even constructed a knife about the same size of his body to use in battle with any other pyramid-head he might encounter.

Others were armed with weapons, too, including Alexandre Lacasse-Desparoic, 29, who dressed as a zombie policeman, though his weapons were no match for his friend who pointed a fake M16 rifle at the laid-out Lacasse-Desparaoic.

Lacasse-Desparoic and his friend had created a backstory for their costumes, including that the friend, dressed in jailhouse attire, had bitten and beat up Lacasse-Desparoic, tearing his skin and shattering his glasses.

“I love zombies pretty much more than anything,” Lacasse-Desparoic said. “I’m sort of hoping for a zombie apocalypse one day so I figured this was the closest I could get to it.”

Their friend Nathalie Blago dressed in a zombie costume that seemed to balance out her friends’ violent clash.

Blago, 22, dressed as a zombie version of Max, a waitress from the television show Broke Girls.

“I died while putting on my lipstick,” Blago said.

Zombies who participated in both the walk and Thrill the World staggered, moaned, danced and amused those who encountered them.

At the National Art Gallery, close to 50 zombies of all ages were sprawled under the giant spider in the late afternoon.

They were brought to life by the beat of Michael Jackson’s hit song “Thriller” and proceeded to perform Jackson’s iconic dance in ripped, bloodied clothing as they stared straight ahead with vacant eyes.

“You get to put on lots of makeup and be completely silly and nobody knows your name,” said first-time participant Tracy Gadnon.

Merissa Tse, event director, said usually organizers for Thrill the World and the Ottawa Zombie Walk try to schedule their events on different dates so that people can participate in both.

But the weekend before Halloween is a popular one and sometimes overlaps can’t be avoided.

After performing, many Thrill the World dancers dragged their corpses to Sparks Street to strut their stuff with an even larger group of zombies.

But despite feelings of solidarity among the city’s zombies, Gadnon said the Ottawa Zombie Walkers need to watch their backs.

“They can walk, but they can’t dance,” she said. “We can take them down with our dancing and we’d rock.”